Jul/Aug 2016
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Home on the Range
A young couple moves north to survive the Zombie Apocalypse and ends up reinventing ranch food. Miriam Donaldson and Josh Norwitt have amassed a loyal following since opening Wishbone in 2014, at the site of the old Three Cooks Cafe in Petaluma. Some of those fans are carryovers from Humble Pie, the six-table Penngrove joint…
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Garden Gold
Free summer workshops teach beginners the how and why of home composting. If you were lucky enough to grow up in Sonoma County, the concept of home composting is probably nothing new. For others, the thought of composting at home might be scary, setting off nightmarish images of a daunting, fly-ridden endeavor with no predictable…
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Wild World
Barrel-aged sour beers are the only thing you’ll find at Shady Oak. Hanging out at the Shady Oak Barrel House is like that classic scene from The Goonies, when Sean Astin tries to convince his friends to stay down in the pirate cave—to choose adventure and unpredictability over the known world above. “Up there, it’s their…
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Everything’s Gone Green
Local herb farms and schools take a slow, sustainable, transparent approach to growing and producing herbal medicine. The California School of Herbal Studies (CSHS) sits on 80 acres down a gravel road off Hwy. 116 in Forestville’s Pocket Canyon. Mostly steep hillsides, the land is thick with Douglas Fir and the remains of redwood stakes…
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A Letter From the Editor
I first visited Sonoma County as an adult in 1991. Freshly graduated from high school, I hopped in the car with my best friend and we escaped Los Angeles, northbound on I-5. Occidental or bust, we declared. For the next week, we hiked through the woods, camped at former hippie commune Morningstar, and drove out…
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Common Ground
Land of Plenty? A new short film illuminates the complexities of Sonoma County’s land-use crisis. Does Sonoma County have room for agriculture, affordable housing, and open space? That critical question lies at the heart of Common Ground, a documentary produced by students at the Leadership Institute for Economy and Ecology. The film focuses a wide…
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Nature’s Gate
The Regrarians Platform helps agriculture and natural landscapes coexist with grace. It’s late spring on Open Field Farm in Petaluma. With summer’s arrival, the farm’s CSA offerings will expand from winter’s limited root vegetables and greens to abundant tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and berries. Just like every farm in the area, Open Field is on the…
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True Cost
Does cheap food cheat farmers and farmworkers out of a fair wage? Farmer Adam Davidoff never wanted to build his business on fancy lettuce. “The mission of New Family Farm has always been to grow hearty food to feed the people,” he says of his organic farm in Sebastopol. Yes, there was more money to…
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The End Bit
Grow More Fruits and Vegetables, Grow the Economy? How much food should we grow in Sonoma County, and why that amount? The question hit me after several years of researching how much Sonoma County farmers produce annually. Since 2008, Sonoma County GO LOCAL has grappled with the calculus of import substitution across business sectors. In…